The greatest revelation of the Trinity is the revelation that God is Love (1 John 4:16). For if the Absolute was not Trinity, then the Absolute would be not Love, but Knowledge- merely Logos. (paraphrase of van Balthasar, Love Alone is Credible). There is no love without Other. And yet God was Love before creation. Thus, there must be some sort of multiplicity within the Unity. Alright, but why three Persons, and not only two? Because Love is fruitful. Loving produces an objective love that is more than the love of the subjects. The Father begets the Son, the Son returns Himself to the Father, and the Spirit is the Love between them so powerful that it is itself a Person.
Any who conceived of the Absolute before the revelation of the Trinity, or without it, did not conceive of it as Love. Absolute knowledge, absolute being perhaps, but not absolute Love. For the Greeks, it was Logos. For the Hindu, the great 'I'. For the Hebrews it was "I AM". For the Deists, the Prime Mover. In all cases, the Absolute was in some way One. The deepest reflections from all over sense a unity as the foundational principle of the universe. This was a start, a very good start. But it is not Love. If one wants Love to be the foundational principle of the universe, there must be Unity in Trinity.
It is truly unfortunate that the Athanasian Creed has fallen into such disuse. It should at least be recited on Trinity Sunday, as I understand it is in most if not all of the liturgical Protestant communities (good for them!). Here is the Trinitarian section:
"...We venerate one God in the Trinity, and the Trinity in oneness; neither [confusing] the persons, nor dividing the substance; for there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, another of the Holy Spirit; but the divine nature of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is one, their glory is equal, their majesty is coeternal. Of such a nature as the Father is, so is the Son, so is the Holy Spirit; the Father is uncreated, the Son is uncreated, the Holy Spirit is uncreated; the Father is immense, the Son is immense, the Holy Spirit is immense; the Father is eternal, the Son is eternal, the Holy Spirit is eternal: and nevertheless there are not three eternals, but one eternal; just as there are not three uncreated beings, nor three infinite beings, but one uncreated, and one infinite; similarly the Father is omnipotent, the Son is omnipotent, the Holy Spirit is omnipotent: and yet there are not three omnipotents, but one omnipotent; thus the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God; and nevertheless there are not three gods, but there is one God; so the Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, the Holy Spirit is Lord: and yet there are not three lords, but there is one Lord; because just as we are compelled by Christian truth to confess singly each one person as God and Lord, so we are forbidden by the catholic religion to say there are three gods or lords. The Father was not made nor created nor begotten by anyone. The Son is from the Father alone, not made nor created, but begotten. The Holy Spirit is from the Father and the Son, not made nor created nor begotten, but proceeding. There is therefore one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Spirit, not three Holy Spirits; and in this Trinity there is nothing first or later, nothing greater or less, but all three persons are coeternal and coequal with one another, so that in every respect, as has already been said above, both unity in Trinity, and Trinity in unity must be venerated..." (Denzinger, Enchiridion Symbolorum, 39)
This also shows quite clearly the error in the ideas of some who change the invocation of the Trinity to something like "Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier" or some such in order to avoid masculine imagery. The Father is not the Son nor the Holy Spirit; but the Father is the Creator, the Son is Creator, and the Spirit is Creator. The name Father differentiates between the Persons, Creator does not. Same for Redeemer and Sanctifier. When the Trinity acts, the entire Trinity acts. We refer in general to the Father as Creator, the Son as Redeemer, the Spirit as Sanctifier by 'appropriation'. We conceptually assign each Person differing functions, but in reality this is not the case. One Person is best for expressing it, for creating a picture of it in our minds. But all Three perform each. Only Father, Son, and Spirit (Ghost) properly identify each Person as distinct Person, while preserving oneness of Godhead.
Of course, this is not a complete explanation. This is a mystery. A complete mystery. THE mystery. But that doesn't mean we ought not contemplate it. But the reason stems from a simple conditional:
If God is not Trinity, God is not Love.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Greetings Mike
GOD is indeed love & God is ONE!
[Gal 3.20]
Therefore,
On the subject of the Trinity,
I recommend this video:
The Human Jesus
Take a couple of hours to watch it; and prayerfully it will aid you to reconsider "The Trinity"
Yours In Messiah
Adam Pastor
Yes, God is One, while being also Three persons. That's one of the mysteries of the faith.
If Jesus is not God, then his death and rising mean nothing for us.
This is what was behind the controversies regarding the divinity of Christ and the nature of the Trinity in the early centuries. The Fathers had to reconcile their monotheism with the fact that both Jesus and the Father (and the Holy Spirit) were each God, and all three together were God.
If Christ is not God, if God did not come in the flesh, then Christianity is nothing special- and in fact, diabolical- for it promises what could only be promised by God taking upon Himself human flesh- the uniting of the human and divine; The possibility of every human person to share in the divine life and Love.
The witness of the early Church Fathers, as well as the Scripture when looked at in its entirety, and not simply choosing verses that fit the notion one wants to prove while ignoring those that don't, shows the truth of the great mystery of the One in Three and the Three in One.
Post a Comment